I LOVE this thread - thank you Yama, I feel your pain.
Eight years ago - Christmas day 2010 - I, widowed, alone, and looking for something to do with my time, finally got my Ubuntu Studio system doing some useful things.
- QjackCtl running
MIFDI connecting to my $98 Yamaha piano
Two Qsynth engines (Strings and psRedGrand soundfonts)
Audacity connected and tested.
pualse Audio head phones - Yes!
Wow! I was so happy!
I sat down at the piano.
I can not play the piano. I bought it, and was determined
not to learn to play it, rather to learn to play WITH it. I knew no songs, had no rehearsed riffs. I had been sitting down, touching the keys, waiting for something i liked to happen. I would stand up, take a bow and walk away. I never tried to do more.
So, to my surprise, I did, in one take, no rehearsal, no do-overs, just sit down and record something I am proud of.
And Eight years later, I have not repeated that success with Linux Music software. I have moved my efforts twice, now onto a dedicated quad core i5 8GB system, and I have bought and equipped a similar system for my nephew. Now both my Nephew and I are disappointed by the almost-ready-for-prime-time experience of working on our music systems but not quite doing anything useful or sustainable with them.
Yet, I can not say "I feel like giving up with audio as a whole". I am ready to embark on learning to use "Non Session Manager ", as my nephew is due to arrive here in 10 days and I want to offer him some hope.
All the things that other posts mentioned: the shifting ground (apps that become obsolete), the challenging documentation (I am an engineer and embedded systems programmer but often overwhelmed) , the difficulty in creating persistent sett-ups, and the wanting to
Just Play Music are frustrations for me as well, but reading these posts and the help and encouragement offered in this thread give me hope that it will be worthwhile to go on.
I will not yield to the dark side.